I have problems with my audio system and I don't want to completely reinstall my computer. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling software, but there seems to be conflict between software system. Maybe a bad configuration somewhere.

So I was wondering if there was a way to purge entirely from my computer software and configuration related to audio. I would then reinstall it afterwards one by one and see if it solves the issue.

Does uninstalling: Alsa, Jack and Pulse Audio enough?How to I reset the configuration?

obviously replace pkg with the names of the packages you want to purge. Note, if one of those are part of a meta package, like desktop-enviroment, you'll get a warning what else gets uninstalled and my change your mind.

If you're using a different system... use man pages, I bet you'll discover more than you never knew -

larienna wrote:So I was wondering if there was a way to purge entirely from my computer software and configuration related to audio.

The answer is simply no, because purging means not only deleting a configuration, but also removing the package.Due to dependencies, probablity is high that you would remove your complete desktop, if you don't first simulate the operation.Without any more precision on your environment (KDE ? Gnome ? etc), impossible to imagine what you need.

You will have an idea on how many audo related files you have in your system with this command

Your comprehensive answer - actual troubleshooting. The windows method of just un/re installing something... so if/when it comes back, what have you really fixed. Making something go away temporarily is a wast of time. In a desktop environment it's unlikely you'll be able to uninstall just audio

What's left of some of /var/log files are a quick and easy way to see if there's a message to give you a clue. Or figure out how to work journalctl

There's probably no need to reinstall anything. Most programs install a user configuration in the hidden files in a user directory. These are indicated by a dot (.) in front of the file or directory. Renaming one of these files will cause the program to create another with default settings. For example, for SMPlayer, go into ~/.config and rename the directory smplayer to smplayer.old. The next time you open SMPlayer it will have its default settings.

@djk44883 To clarify, you cannot fix a problem before identifying which problem you are supposed to fix.Then two steps:1 - is the problem in the user session ? new test user session will clarify.2 - if not in the user session, it can be conflicts anywhere, or some files from multimedia repository or ppa ubuntu etc etc.

It's a bit like asking people to make "auto-remove / full-ugrade" etc before having any clue on the system status (packages on hold etc etc).It can solve or it can break the system: it's a question of probability ......Then, step by step to identify "the" problem.If the problem is in the user session, of course the solution is easy if the incriminated program is identified.I do not have a crystal ball.

When you say "conflicts", I start wondering about deb-multimedia involvement. We have at least one current thread over on MX where one of its bogus "higher versioned" libraries removes the gufw firewall GUI, something you don't associate with multimedia. Another one of them doesn't remove GIMP 2.10.12, but does break it.

Exactly, I have that in mind because it already happened to me.... long time ago.Audio at system level can be very tricky, before knowing what we talk about, and potentially with a mixture of ppa and all we can imagine.To enable my front-end mic plug to be controlled with pulse-audio (on Strecth), I have used hdajackretask from alsa-tools-gui (the only solution).Really not easy to manage, and a file is created at /lib/firmware/hda-jack-retask.fw, then in the deepness of the system.Updating libavcodecXY from deb-multimediato and get back the file from Debian can be a real nightmare...... and forcing operations can really break the system by uninstalling everything.

Then the problem of larienna can really be an easy one (corrupted user file in .config), or ... more complicated.Then step by step on something which seems "so easy", "so obvious".

You certainly should find out what the problem is before attempting to fix it. Read logs, journalctl. Check if the correct sound card is configured and volumes are up in alsamixer. Removing and reinstalling can be a bad thing to do due to audio being a core function and the likelihood of it removing vast amounts of the system via dependencies.It's kinda like when your car breaks down and saying you are going to buy another car to fix it.

“ computer users can be divided into 2 categories:Those who have lost data...and those who have not lost data YET ”Remember toBACKUP!

OK, here is a log of what I tried this morning. The results were surprisingly positive:

- I am using cinnamon iinterface, no audio control since I deinstalled previously pulseaudio- Currently Audacious is working with Alsa- Installed LMMS with it's dependencies (which were all previously purged)- When I run ZynAddSubFX with alsa, I get a "Default IO did not initialise. Defaulting to null backend" message. Audio is not working.- Same thing if I run ZynAddSubFX with jack, but logical since jack is not installed.- LMMS works. Surprising since it's dependent on ZynAddSubFX which does not work. (I cannot install lmms without zynaddsubfx)- Installed Rosegarden which is dependent on jack2d which was also installed.- audio works in rosegarden.- Both zynaddsubfx still does not work (but not sure I really need it).

I have not tried with another user yet since things were working. Zynaddsubfx is not working but I wonder if I really need it. Cinnamon does not recognize any audio because pulse audio has been previously uninstalled. But I wonder if it's worth installing just for a simple widget since it's relatively big.